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In his fairgrounds' speech Thursday, Obama said private-equity firms can sometimes create jobs. "But when maximizing short-term gains for your investors rather than building companies that last is your goal," he added, "then sometimes it goes the other way. Workers get laid off. Benefits disappear. Pensions are cut. Factories go dark." Obama himself has struggled to attract blue-collar voters, keys to winning struggling swing working-class regions such as southeast Ohio, western Pennsylvania and rural Iowa. Newton is the seat of Jasper County, Iowa, where unemployment was 7.1 percent in April, higher than Iowa's average but down sharply from last winter. While Iowa is known for its first-in-the-nation caucuses, it also is a coveted general election state, despite its small electoral total. Democrat Al Gore carried the state by less than a percentage point in 2000, followed by Republican George W. Bush's 2-point victory in 2004. Obama has already spent more than $2.6 million on advertising, a pace as aggressive as in any other battleground state. He's been a regular visitor, and was making his second trip in a month. Yet the president's approval rating here has been stuck below 50 percent for over two years, softened in part by criticism from Republicans campaigning for Iowa's leadoff caucuses. Polls show Iowans also have become increasingly bothered by federal spending, an issue Romney stoked in Des Moines last week in a visit where he promised to shrink the deficit. Iowans, many of whom met Obama in the 2008 campaign, also are disappointed by what they hoped would be a transcendent presidency, said J. Ann Selzer, the longtime director of The Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll. "You hear disaffection. You hear them say, `This isn't what I paid for,'" Selzer said. "The guy they sent there to recast things wasn't able to do it." Privately updating Senate Democrats on Thursday, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said the president has several possible paths to collecting the 270 electoral votes he needs for victory in November. But he noted that Romney, the Republican Party and allied super PACs are likely to have a great deal of money to spend. Obama vastly outspent Republican John McCain in winning the White House four years ago, an advantage that Democrats appear unlikely to command in 2012. Romney senses the opening. He too has cultivated an Iowa network. Indeed, he campaigned aggressively for the 2008 caucuses during his narrowly losing bid for the state's delegates. Romney and the Republican National Committee have hired state directors and are hiring staff to run a dozen or more offices planned for Iowa. And his campaign has begun running television ads in Iowa.
[Associated
Press;
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